Agriculture Business Practice Group

The Agribusiness industry is vital to our country and, more importantly, California economies. The businesses in the agriculture sector deliver a key ingredient to humans: food. The AgBusiness industry contributed more than $250B to the North American 2016 economy. The product and service providers in the AgBusiness sector share many challenges and opportunities:

The CFOs2Go Partner team is uniquely qualified to address the current and emerging issues in the AgBusiness landscape. Our team has more than 100 years of experience and are capable to assist in successfully developing business and financial solutions. We are located in the Ag epicenters in Northern California: Napa, Sonoma, Central Valley and the Monterey Peninsula. The CFOs2Go Partner team has established relationships with attorneys, commercial and investment bankers, auditors and specialty service providers; these relationships provide collaborative solutions focused on our clients.

Practice Leaders – Marc Loupé and Jodi Avina

Marc Loupé brings more than 25 years of comprehensive global financial and operational management experience to our clients. He has held senior financial management roles in various industries, including agriculture, by which he gained breadth and depth as a CFO for two significant multibillion dollar companies. His accounting, finance and operational experiences include strategy development and implementations, company transformations, acquisitions and divestitures, financial and operational systems implementations, profitability and cash flow improvement programs, improved financial governance and accounting processes, treasury operations, international business, legal operations, sales development, human resources management, product line executive general management and Co-CEO.

Marc’s passion for the agricultural industry is systemic to his life, both professionally and personally. He graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, a major agricultural school. While majoring in Accounting in the School of Business there, he maintained his own vegetable and herb garden as his food source. After graduation, he became a California CPA. He began his professional career with an initial focus on the agricultural industry (oranges, almonds and dairies) with clients at Touche Ross & Co. (now Deloitte), a top international CPA firm. His scope continues to expand into contemporary opportunities such as cannabis. Delighting in Napa, Marc has partially resided there for more than 15 years. His wedding was at the Souverain Winery (now Coppola). He is a member of the Napa Chamber of Commerce and holds a Certificate in Accounting and Finance in the Wine Industry from Sonoma State University. Also, he is obtaining his Master of Science in Accounting at Golden Gate University.

Jodi Avina, Industry and Talent Expert

Jodi Avina is the Director of Recruiting Services for CFOs2GO. She has been with CFOs2GO for more than 15 years, providing executive search and placement services for a variety of clients, using her knowledge of food farming, processing, distribution and exporting, both domestically and internationally and more importantly her established relationships with the industry’s financial management leaders. The scope and quality of these relationships translate into faster placements and lower hiring risks. Grower clients include co-ops as well as agribusiness growers of almonds, fruit, berries and vegetables, specialty equipment providers, wineries and wholesale nurseries among many others. Jodi contributes in all areas of recruiting including compensation, job description development and classification status. Her appreciation of agribusiness patterns in seasonality, planning, distribution and staffing for seasonal crop periods makes her a welcome contributor to clients.

Jodi is well-grounded in international cultures and several languages, including being fluent in French, conversational German and Russian. Her career has taken her worldwide – from living in France in college, to working with Ernst and Young and ending up in financial recruiting. She sits on several Boards for non-profits, including the East Bay Leadership Council and is past Chairman for Opportunity Junction in Antioch. Jodi brings 15 plus years of experience in the field of International business. Her understanding of the dynamic market conditions of global companies and her strong relationships translate to unique and significant contributions to clients.

Who We Serve

Vineyard and Winery Operations

Vineyard and Winery Owners and Operators are unique agricultural entrepreneurs who share an industry passion to balance the love of wine making and with the economic benefits of the wine making effort. The current wine industry environment necessitates the trusted advisor to navigate the financial implications associated with direct-to-consumer regulations and operations, channel distribution, water and energy conservation techniques, the trade-off of merging or acquiring another vineyard or winery, the importing and exporting of bottled wine, the appropriate level of financial controls for solid inventory management and retail operations, and implementing point-of-sale systems. A company has just so many resources to attack the ongoing challenge of balancing business priorities; priorities are not always sequential to allow orderly management. We assist in focusing your financial operations.

Cannabis

The 2016 passage of California Proposition #64, the legalization of cannabis for recreational use, has generated approximately a potential $24 billion revenue opportunity for California by 2025. Most cannabis growers and service providers have multiple needs to satisfy their cannabis business objectives. Some of the discrete business requirements are: establishing banking or alternative-banking and financing relationships, creating financial management systems, ensuring compliance to the evolving California legislation and taxation policies, determining the necessity of co-existing with winery operations and forming alliances with attorneys and other supply chain participants.

Agricultural Crop: Products and Services

The key business imperative for crop growers and service providers is to do more with less. It is no mystery the price of food is not elastic. The supply chain providers constantly identify, assess and implement new technologies to: 1) improve product safety, yield and labor productivity; 2) reduce energy and water consumption; 3) deploy sustainability programs; and 4) improve profit margins and cash flows.

Capabilities

CFOs2GO advises and assists agricultural companies on:

Conduct initial evaluations of overall current financial management to set a baseline for opportunities to improve effectiveness and efficiency

Develop financial models for evaluating capital intensive projects, both for internal review and to present to the financial community (“bankable” models)